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Kostadin Vodenicharov writes "The International Olympiad in Informatics is considered one of the most prestigious programming contests in the world. Currently the 21st IOI is being held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (which was the country that also hosted the 1st IOI), from 8th to 15th August. High school students from all over the world have gathered to put their programming skills to the test. Everyone else who wishes to participate can do it in the online contest which will run in parallel with the real one and will present the same tasks to be solved. The competition itself is going to take place on Monday 10th August and Wednesday 12th August from 9:00 to 14:00 EEST (UTC+3)."

I remember when my team won the Math Olympiad back in high school. The light hearted competition was what really stands out as the prime motivator for me. Without this kind of competition, we geeks would have just been white wedgied wallflowers with wack Hypercolor t-shirts.

The kids taking part in this IOI are going to take home something memorable. And hopefully the American teams can learn a little more about the rest of the world.

It's also a great way to get a scholarship to a great university, like MIT (no flaming to other schools, insert your favorite school here that gives need-based scholarships to international students)From my experience, from the people that I know from Eastern Europe, only those that went to such international Olympiads (math/informatics) managed to get admission to MIT..

In many eastern-european countries, it's more difficult to qualify for this event than the actual tournament..Kudos to those who participate and to their teachers..In my time there was no TopCoder, UVA, etc... it wasn't easy to prepare for these.. But now I'm sure it's even more challenging, given the amount of material available..

I have looked at the winners of the last 10 mathematics Olympiads and the last 15 informatics Olympiads. I cannot see a single African or African-American in the winners' circle.

Could this lack of African accomplishment be due to the IQ difference between Africans and either Europeans or Japanese? The average IQ of the Africans is about 20 points lower than the average IQ of the Europeans or the Japanese.

My African peers claim that racist discrimination is the "reason" that Africans cannot win in these contests. Is this claim true or false?